Odsox wrote:WOT ??
The best bit, and the skin on custard, and the skin on rice pudding, and the skin on milky bedtime drinks, and the skin on roast pork.
What's that got to do with dock leaves though ?

How could you do this to me?

I'm just getting used to being dairy free and you remind me about the delights of skin. Now I'm going to sob quietly for lost loves for weeks.

The Dock Bug http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreus_marginatus might disagree with the original post. Although I've never seen one on dock, only on my blackberries and raspberries. And Ragwort is a very important plant which hosts many species of insect, notably the Cinnabar Moth, whose larvae help to control it. They also eat Groundsel although to be honest I have to let groundsel grow in my veg patch just to feed the Cinnabar cats!

Last edited by Millymollymandy on Sat Aug 30, 2014 7:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

And just to be serious for a moment, I could not find flaked tapioca in the UK, only flaked rice (pudding rice) which I didn't care for much - prefer regular pudding rice. But I have memories of flaked tapioca from childhood. There seemed to be a distinct lack of choice in the rice, tapioca, semolina (didn't like that one at school) and sago department. I don't even remember sago.

I think sago and tapioca are the same starch, but sago was smooth(ish) and tapioca was frogspawn - or the other way round. Milk puddings just seem to have died out. Form OJs point of view that may be a good thing.

Maggie

Never doubt that you can change history. You already have. Marge Piercy

Millymollymandy wrote:The Dock Bug http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreus_marginatus might disagree with the original post. Although I've never seen one on dock, only on my blackberries and raspberries. And Ragwort is a very important plant which hosts many species of insect, notably the Cinnabar Moth, whose larvae help to control it. They also eat Groundsel although to be honest I have to let groundsel grow in my veg patch just to feed the Cinnabar cats!

See? Even the Dock Bug goes somewhere else for its dinner!

EDIT: All this thread is doing is conjuring up memories of several small boys (me being one of them) marching home from school singing "Sago, Rice and Tapioca" (as in Glory, Glory Hallelujah). Funny where your mind goes, isn't it? And walking home from school - they'd never believe it. The yoof of today don't know they're born ................

Dock and Ragwort are just two of our native plant species. Native plants support native insects and fungi, which are, in turn, food for other predators and parasites. So nothing is useless, and the chain of species dependencies is endless: nothing stands alone and everything is used. We are part of that chain.

Some specifics:

26 fungi are associated with Dock.
Just under 40 species of insect are associated with Ragwort. (I am currently researching the migrant Tachinid fly Eriothrix rufomaculata, which I only ever find on Ragwort. This is parasitic on the larvae of moths, but its only known UK host isn't found in Ireland where I live. It isn't targeting the Cinnabar, so there must be another host, currently unknown). It's complex out there......

I know this is an old post but I am a newby and was browsing the site. The question of docks is a common one here as well; usually treated as a useless weed. There are a number or Rumex species grouped as "dock" and each has its niche - from dryer sandy ground to swamps and bogs.

First point; food is needed to keep you warm and vertical - if it tastes good it is a bonus.

As already discussed, the plant (roots, leaves & seeds) can be eaten but (flavour aside) the energy acquired is not balanced by the energy required to process - overall a net nutritional loss on its own. On the positive side, most docks are deep rooted which means they are accessing water and nutrients below the root zones of our more palatable vegies. These nutrients are then lodged in the above ground portions and subsequently made available (recycled) as the top growth dies - great for harvesting and putting in the compost along with the nettles. Historically dock roots were used as a source of minerals (particularly iron) in the diet - I guess they didn't know why it worked, just that it did.
The deep root also penetrates and breaks up sub-soils, allowing water and surface nutrients to move down and enliven the subsoil.

So, if you can tolerate it in your fallow, don't allow it to seed and get the top growth into the compost it does have its benefits. However, you can also get similar benefits from the long, white "Japanese" radishes.

There are not more than five primary colours, yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever be seen - (Sun Tzu 600BC)